


Safe from Harm

by rudbeckia



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Armitage Hux Lives, Ben Solo Lives, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Post TROS, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:20:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23071606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rudbeckia/pseuds/rudbeckia
Summary: Kylo Ren, or is he Ben Solo now? is left for dead on Exegol. He scavenges the wrecks of Final Order star destroyers for any means of escape.Armitage Hux, shot at close range and assumed dead, escapes The Steadfast with the help of stormtroopers and a few officers loyal to him personally.Imagine their surprise when they meet on a planet where they have both been tricked into a form of slavery.They escape together and Hux returns to The Finalizer to find it with a skeleton crew, still undergoing repairs after Batuu. With his ship back, and the Supreme Leader ready to quit, he has difficult decisions to make about his future. But one thing he is truly sure about is that his future involves Ben Solo.And revenge. Yes, definitely that.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Ben Solo, Armitage Hux/Kylo Ren
Kudos: 30





	Safe from Harm

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter 1 started life as a twitfic. It has been tidied up and a few inconsistencies fixed.

Kylo Ren, or Ben Solo—he wasn’t sure exactly who or what he was now—lost track of time.

With no guiding pattern of day and night in the murky atmosphere of Exegol, he couldn’t tell when he slept if it was for minutes, for hours or for days. But he knew he had been there a long time.

The early period was worst, when his abandonment was still as raw as the wounds that scarred red and healed pink without bacta treatment, and he would emerge to shout and scream at the few glimpses of useless sky about the unfairness of it all.

Palpatine was gone, and not just in decaying body. All trace of the Sith was absent from the force when Ben, or was he Kylo? sat cross-legged and closed-eyed and reached out as best he could in case that sucking vortex of darkness might be lurking somewhere, waiting to return.

Somehow.

Palpatine’s acolytes were gone too, their lives extinguished, crumbling to dust and ashes when Palpatine did. Ben wondered sometimes if those thousands and thousands of Sith cultists had even existed at all, or if they were a mirage, a false presence projected into his head and.

Hers.

By Palpatine himself trying to give the illusion of greater power. Then she’d left him. She, Rey, after he saved her, she left him for dead.

Everyone left him. Eventually.

Except.

Except that faint voice in his head repeating that one gentle but firm syllable. When he felt at his weakest with despair and at his strongest with anger and hate, he heard it.

Ben.

Uncounted time passed and his fresh wounds healed tracks and lumps into his newly pristine skin, Kylo Ren erased and overwritten. When he had nothing worse to pain him than a few tight scars and a limp, he’d listen for that name. Sometimes he’d go looking in the force, but the voice never told him anything more than his name.

It was this planet, he decided one... morning? He’d woken up from a dream in which his mother had held him, wiped away his frustrated tears and told him to move on, and he’d known it was time to find a way off Exegol before he withered away and joined the bones and dust and hulking wrecks that littered the surface.

Somewhere in one of those wrecks, he thought, must be a space-worthy craft he could salvage.

Who would have seen it coming, he laughed bitterly to himself as he swung himself up and into the upended hangar of a downed Final Order star destroyer. He’d scorned the scavenger when he was Supreme Leader. Now he was a scavenger and she.

She was.

Everything he was not.

It was in the fourth Star Destroyer that he found an Upsilon that was not completely destroyed by the impact, protected by its moorings within the hangar, suspended from a single anchor point, delicate as a roosting bat. Finding enough unruptured power cells to bring it down safe took countless days of searching and dragging and lifting. And he wouldn’t even try to use the force for this. He couldn’t bring himself to do it. He didn’t have the right to make it easier for himself.

Not after.

Not after the things he’d done.

So it was by physical strength and sweat and careful, methodical work that Ben Solo got the craft powered up, free of its precarious mooring and into orbit. He’d intended to land and check its systems, stock it with rations, make sure it had a working hyperdrive first. But as soon as he strapped into the pilot seat he absolutely knew he could never set foot on that cursed planet again.

From orbit he could see the complete devastation of the surface. Star destroyers had launched, ripped up through the ground and into orbit, leaving gashes in what passed for landscape. Then they had fallen, buried themselves in craters when they plummeted back down and scattered pieces of torn metal and plasteel like confetti.

“Where should I go?” he asked himself.

There was only one answer he could possibly understand.  
Away from here.

The Upsilon had, Ben was very relieved to find out, a functional navicomputer and a set of galactic charts that General Hux would have salivated over. With a stab of guilt, Ben realised that he’d given no thought to his old...

His old...  
Friend, No. They were never really that even when.  
Even when they were.

Whatever they were. Once.

Hux, Ben reasoned, was probably dead. Probably died in battle or maybe his remains were on one of the star destroyer hulks he’d searched, half-buried on Exegol, reduced to a few scraps of mummified tissue and some twisted and broken bones. He knows it’s macabre but Ben can’t help wondering if his hair is still fire-red.

The navicomputer beeps in irritation. Ben blinks and sighs. “I don’t know,” he says to it. “Take me somewhere safe as far from here as you can.”  
There’s a rapid sequence of beeps and whirrs. “I don’t care. Just get me somewhere habitable, far away from here. Somewhere I don’t need to kriffing think. Somewhere I can just breathe.”

As pinpoint stars streak into blue lines around him, Ben offers silent thanks to the force that the Upsilon doesn’t explode or tear itself into shrapnel.

He’s not sure but he has a faint feeling that something in the Force is... Pleased?

He falls asleep right there in the pilot’s chair. When he wakes up, the stars still smear past the viewports, and he sleeps again. It keeps happening. He’s hungry and he eats, thirsty and he drinks. Exhausted and he sleeps. Filthy and he uses the tiny ‘fresher to have a sonic.

His clothes are barely more than tattered rags held together by wishful thinking more than anything else. The shuttle has a limited selection of spare uniform garments intended for whichever allegiant general or grand admiral might have used it. Fortunately whoever it was took a large size, and he is smaller than he once was. Ben shakes out leggings and an undershirt that stretch over his limbs and body without discomfort, and pulls on the breeches. The tunic, with its insignia and rank bars, he drops on the floor.

The navicomputer beeps and clicks a warning. Ben leaps back into the pilot seat and straps in as the craft lurches out of lightspeed. There‘s a planet blinking on the chart the computer shows him.  
“Huh,” Ben says. “I’ve never heard of it. Good choice.”  
The computer trills happiness at the praise.

This system is not one the First Order ever claimed, he’s sure of that because the star chart marks it in plain white. And it was never claimed for the Empire, he deduces, after analysing the composition of the atmosphere. It’s far too clean to have been a manufacturing centre and the initial scan shows there are mineral deposits that would have been strip-mined.

The comm beeps and a cheerful voice calls out. “Welcome, visitor! Please state the nature of your visit and prepare for scanning.”  
“Uh?” Ben raises his eyebrows. “Vacation?”

The professionally bright voice seems happy with that response and, after Ben answers a series of questions about how long he intends to stay and whether he is bringing any foreign goods to the economy, he is guided to land.

As soon as he powers down the engines and lowers the upsilon’s ramp, two smiling but heavily armed guards walk in and inform him that, since this is clearly a military craft with a functioning hyperdrive, the Minister is impounding it and he will be compensated for the loss. Another guard offers him a currency card and an address. Anger flares in Ben’s gut but is quickly doused. There’s no threat here. Clearly no one knows who he is.

He’s nobody.  
And the thought makes him smile.

The address he’s dropped off at by the droid-driven transport is a blocky, grey hostel with square windows on the outside and boxy rooms on the inside. It’s cleaner than Ben expects, has an actual water shower (a little cold for his liking), and a holo player tuned to local news.

The language switches between Galactic Basic and something Ben assumes is the local language. He sits to listen and realises after a few minutes that what he is listening to is a lesson.  
The holo presenter says something in Basic. Ben repeats it in unfamiliar syllables. The presenter laughs and claps their hands.

“Are you,” Ben says slowly, “my teacher?”  
The presenter wags a finger and says a word in the new language. Ben repeats it.  
“Are you,” he says, stumbling over new vocabulary, “my teacher?”  
“Yes,” the presenter says. “You’re a fast learner. Repeat these key phrases.”

The language lesson lasts for hours that fly past. Ben only realises he’s hungry when the holo tells him to go to the refectory for dinner. There are guards here and there, all smiling, all armed and all alert. Ben picks up a generous serving of some kind of bread with thick soup and sits with the other residents.

There is quiet talk.  
“You’re new,” the person opposite says.  
“Yes,” Ben replies.  
“Where ya from?”  
Ben frowns. “Does it matter?”  
They shrug, beige overalls drowning narrow shoulders. “S’pose not. Got your job allocation yet?”  
“My what?” Ben asks, frowning.  
“Living here ain’t free, mate. They make you work for your keep.”

Ben’s spoon clunks into his bowl and one of the guards watches. “What do you mean?” he asks, stomach threatening to rebel.  
“You came here by accident, right?” his new friend says. Ben nods. “Well. You better learn to like it because you ain’t leaving again.”  
Ben leans closer. “Are we... are we slaves?”  
The woman laughs and shakes her head. “You not been to the talk yet? You must be real new. Technically, no. They _pay_ us to work with local coin we can save up and spend on little luxuries like nicer clothes and cigarras. We live here and we get fed. It’s pretty decent if you got no one to miss and no one to miss you. The only thing we are not allowed to do is leave.”  
“Or contact anyone off-planet,” someone else adds. “Minister’s rules.”  
“Why are we under armed guard, then?” Ben says, pointing at the two nearest, smiling, blaster-toting uniforms.  
“We are here for your safety and protection,” one of them intones.

Ben returns to his room with a head full of questions. The holo presenter promises to answer, but they are limited by the presenter’s insistence that Ben use a language he has only just started to learn.

“You will meet the Minister,” he’s reassured. “When you are ready. The Minister wants to meet you.”

It takes weeks. At least, Ben thinks as he showers in warm-enough water and puts on a clean, beige overall, as hideouts go this one is pretty sweet. He’s got a place to stay, food, Holobabe (as he has taken to calling his teacher) to talk to, and the other residents are quiet when he wants to try to meditate. But the force is hard to join here. He feels something resisting him, pushing back at his edges as he reaches out, like an elastic sheet he can’t push through, and it sometimes frustrates him to the point of lashing out, beating his fists into his bedcovers and stifling his yells with his pillow.

It passes, mostly. When he’s fully healed and rested, recovering some of his lost bodyweight through running outside _(Please turn back, sir, your safety is important to us and you may not leave the compound)_ and sparring a simulated partner stuck on _Intermediate unarmed combat_ in the compound gymnasium, he begins to feel the restlessness of boredom.

It seems that his captors, genial as they are, are having trouble allocating him suitable work.  
“In due course we will match you with an occupation,” Holobabe tells him every time he complains of listlessness and frustration.  
“When, though?” Ben snaps. “I have been stuck here with nothing to do for... for...”  
“Thirty days,” the holo supplies. “The minister will be in this region tomorrow and he has been asking to meet you. Your language skills are good enough and you are ready to be deployed somewhere. I am genuinely at a loss as to why you don’t fit any of our vacant positions. I will schedule your meeting.”  
“Thank you,” Ben says. But Holobabe either doesn’t notice his sarcastic tone, or ignores it.

The next morning, a droid brings Ben a new outfit. It’s still an overall, but at least this one seems to fit him better. When the holo flickers to life, it tells Ben to wait outside the front of the building until a transport collects him. It arrives after a few minutes and he steps on board.

The other passengers barely look at him. It hits him that he’s calm. He’s not happy with his situation, but he’s not living in fear of failing anyone because nobody expects him to be anything or to do anything. He smiles to himself and huffs gently as the transport sets off again. He’ll show this ‘Minister’ that he’s not a drone, make himself useful, manipulate whoever the poor sap is and use his influence to get his Upsilon back and get off the planet. A prison is a prison, however comfortable it seems to be.

The trip in the transport is just long enough for Ben to try meditating with the quiet hum of the repulsor motors to help focus his mind. But a state of awareness of the force eludes him as usual and he gives up in favour of watching his fellow passengers. They look healthy and well-rested. Like off-duty stormtroopers.

He frowns and regards their calm faces and wonders if they are all trying to meditate too and having better luck than he is at finding their place in the force.

The transport slows and stops. The doors open and everyone gets up to shuffle down the narrow gangway and off the ramp. Ben follows. There is a familiar face smiling at him from the street.  
“Uh, hello,” Ben says, mentally organising his new vocabulary. “I thought you were a sim or a droid.”  
“As you see,” his teacher replies, “I am not. You may call me Dar instead of Holobabe.”

Ben hides his embarrassment at having been caught out behind anger at having been spied on. “Were you Listening in? Watching me in my room?”  
“Only when I was online,” Dar says with a grin. “I can’t speak for The Minister. He’s been obsessed by you ever since you arrived. He actually requested to meet you early.”  
Ben bites his tongue and wonders if this _Minister_ saw everything.

Every moment of weakness.  
Every moment of loneliness.  
Every moment he thought of Hux and what might have been.

Dar leads Ben along the main street, lined with people either here to catch a glimpse of their leader, or perhaps just wondering what was going on and joining the throng for fear of missing out. Here and there Ben spies the smiling guards with their blasters visible. He slows down to study his surroundings better and Dar asks him what’s wrong. “Nothing,” he lies. “An ache from my old injuries,” he says when Dar waits for him to explain.

Dar seems satisfied and slows their pace. There’s a small landing pad in the square where the main street ends and Ben almost chokes when he sees his upsilon glide down onto it.  
“The Minister is grateful for the new shuttle,” Dar says. “Some of the refugees we offered asylum to only brought troop transports.”

The door hisses open and the ramp descends. Ben watches, jaw slack, as a man walks down the ramp flanked by more smiling guards. The charcoal grey uniform is gone, replaced with clothes that flatter his slender form. His hair is longer and styled. And it is still flame red.

He’s wearing black glasses that hide his blue-grey-green eyes, a figure-hugging leather jacket, tight fitting black trousers, and his height is enhanced by scarlet, delicate-heeled shoes that taper to points on his narrow feet.

But there is no mistaking who this is.

Dar takes Ben by the elbow and walks him over to where the Minister waits impassively.  
“Minister,” Dar says with a slight dip of their head. “This is the new refugee you wanted to meet. I apologise that I have yet to find him a suitable position.”  
Hux smiles. “I want him,” Hux says. “On my staff.”  
“I see,” Dar replies with the first frown Ben has seen on their face. “I will suggest it to the—”  
“I am the Minister,” Hux says loudly, looking around. The crowd can see and hear clearly. “And what I say is law. This refugee will join my personal team.”

A few people cheer and clap. Sweetness and light return to Dar’s face, but up close Ben sees a muscle twitch here, a whitening of lips there, and knows they are hiding anger.  
“Of course, Minister,” Dar says.  
Hux walks past Ben and Dar without another glance. His guards shadow him as he shakes hands and exchanges pleasantries with the crowd.

Ben thinks he might just stop breathing. He watches Hux work the crowd, smiling and shaking hands, never taking his glasses off, never getting more than two steps away from his armed escort. How long has Hux been here? he wonders. And how long did it take the little weasel to insinuate himself into power?

Of course that’s what happened, Ben concludes. Hux came down here, got captured with kindness and took over. Perhaps his guards are loyal stormtroopers from the programme he developed with his odious father. This planet, Ben decided, never stood a chance.

Perhaps the force brought him here, Ben thinks. Perhaps to atone for the horrors visited on planets by the First Order, he has to save this one. From Hux.  
So that is what he will do.

Dar steers Ben by the elbow to the shuttle ramp. “This is unusual,” they say. “A mistake that I am sure will be rectified soon. Get on the Minister’s shuttle for now. I will have someone collect you once we get this all sorted out.”

Hux returns to the shuttle with a guard at each shoulder. Dar waits by the ramp, staring stonily at Hux until the ramp is raised and the doors seal. Hux sighs. “Say nothing, Ben,” he says, lifting his hand, palm up and out, “unless you want everyone to hear it.”  
Ben frowns. “Minister?”  
Hux nods once. “Thank you for the Upsilon,” he says in a conversational tone that raises Ben’s suspicions. “I had to disable the hyperdrive and compromise life support so the best it can do now is a low orbit.”  
“Had to?”  
Hux nods again. “I had to,” he repeats in Basic.

I had to.  
HAD to.  
Ben murmurs back in Basic. “Why?”

Hux smiles with his lips but even with the glasses on Ben knows it doesn’t crinkle his eyes the way it should. “Of course,” Hux says in the local language. “This planet is a haven. A refuge. All who come here are cared for. Given a safe place to live, given food and clothing. Given meaningful work for the remainder of their natural lives. We can’t have that compromised by outside influence, can we?”  
“Of course not,” Ben replies. “I see that now.”  
The guard who had casually brought their blaster up to inspect it slips the weapon back into its holster.

Ben sits where the other guard points and Hux sits directly opposite. Ben does not need the force to read Hux’s mind. This whole situation feels wrong. Hux should be sneering, lording it over Ben, saying: look at this man, used to be supreme leader, now he’s my servant. But Hux is silent, subdued.

Ben searches his vocabulary and worries about grammar.  
“How long have you been Minister?” he asks.  
Hux glances at the guards but neither reacts. “It may surprise you to know that I am also a refugee,” he says in a condescending tone that is entirely more comfortable for Ben to hear. “I arrived here with my—”  
A guard shifts.  
“—gratitude at having found a safe home. When my assigned teacher found out that I had useful skills and experience, I was assigned to govern.”

“Karking Sith,” Ben says, then switches to his new language when a guard stares at him. “Dar hasn’t found me a job yet. Does that mean they think I’m useless?”  
Ben smiles when he sees that Hux’s mirth is genuine.  
“Dar will find you a job soon,” he says. “Like they did for me.”

Ben switches to Basic and uses a dialect he learned from his father and hopes Hux will understand. “Youssa no bigga bossa hereplace.”  
Hux frowns at him. “Didn’t _Dar_ teach you to speak?”  
Ben stares at Hux’s dark lenses.

Dar. DAR. Dar whose holo-presence is probably in every room.

“Yes,” he says. “I understand.”  
“Good,” Hux says. “Follow my lead,” he mouths silently.  
Ben blinks slowly and hopes Hux knows that means yes, or at least, “yes unless I think of something better.”  
“This shuttle was your tribute,” Hux says, smiling falsely again.  
“Yes,” Ben replies.  
“Again, thank you. Are you capable of joining the engineering team? I mean, you know how this particular shuttle operates, yes?”  
“Yes,” Ben replies, then adds, “of course, sir.”  
“Good,” Hux says. “It took me ages to disable the hyperdrive and I don’t think I did a particularly good job. All I did was pull out a few wires. Really, I need someone who knows it so well they can trash it completely without damaging life support at the same time.”  
“Yes, sir. It’s a very tricky procedure.”  
“Indeed. I mean if someone were accidentally to connect the input and the output of the modulator the wrong way round it would be disastrous for anyone who didn’t know what they were dealing with.”

Ben nods slight agreement and complete understanding.  
“Of course,” he says. “If I were to disable the hyperdrive completely I would need only a minute or so.”  
“That is helpful,” Hux said. ”After assisting me with that, I suppose you could be assigned to work wherever you chose.”

Ben looks at his feet and smiles. Then he looks at Hux’s feet and smiles wider.  
“Are those comfortable?” he asks, pointing at the four inch stiletto heels.  
Hux pulls one ankle up to rest across his knee, removes his shoe and rubs his big toe. “Not really,” he says, easing off the other shoe. “Came with the job.”

Hux has one shoe in each hand, testing the metallic studs at the points of the heels. Ben sees his mouth harden into a tight line and he waits.  
“I have one red pair,” Hux says. “Two black...” he removes his dark glasses and Ben stares at his eyes. Hux taps the metal-ended heels together and Ben recovers.

“Three,” Hux says, and leaps.

thirty seconds later, one guard lies unconscious with the imprint of Ben’s hand on his throat. The other lies bleeding from a head wound and is gurgling bright red and foamy pink from where a scarlet, stiletto heel is embedded between two of his ribs. Ben is on his back under the navicomputer and Hux has a chokehold on the pilot. He releases the pilot when he feels the pilot’s muscles slacken, then drops the man and reaches into the same hatch as Ben to reposition the life support air scrubber intake and exhaust.

Ben, on his back under the console, feels the weight of Hux straddling him as Hux reaches blindly and makes the adjustments by feel. It’s distracting to say the least to have his former colleague, former... former.

former irritant  
former rabid cur  
former lover

squirming on his hips when he’s trying to reset the hyperdrive.

“Kriffing Mustafar, Hux, you made a mynock’s nest of this,” he says, hoping his irritation will distract Hux from his growing interest in more weight, more squirming.  
“Shut the fuck up, Kylo,” Hux says. “Just get it working before anyone on the sithdamned surface clocks that we’re escaping and comes after us.”

With a satisfied “Ah-hah!” Hux gets the life support back to full capacity and stands up. Ben slots the last connector into place and gives Hux the thumbs up as he slides back out and up and taps the navicomputer console.

“Welcome back, babe, did you miss me?” he says. The navicomputer beeps something that even Hux can translate. “Be like that then,” Ben grumbles. “Set a course for...” he looks at Hux. Hux shrugs. “Arkanis,” Ben says.

There’s a tense period of about twenty seconds that feels like a lifetime while the computer calculates their course. It beeps stridently and Ben yells, “I DON’T CARE IF WE’RE STILL IN ATMO! FUCKING PUNCH IT!”

Everything lurches and blurs.

When Ben regains consciousness, the first things he sees are flame-red hair, a pale brow wrinkled into a frown, and unnaturally red-rimmed, blue eyes.  
“Hux,” he says. “What the fuck did they do to you?”  
“Condition of employment,” Hux replies. “Cybernetic implants so that they could see everything through my eyes. Literally.” Hux strokes Ben’s hair back from his face, although it is already clear of his forehead. “It was idyllic at first. We were welcomed. Everyone who helped me escape from the Final Order was given medical assistance, food and clothing and a safe place to stay. All they wanted in return was the troop transport we arrived on.”

Hux puts his dark glasses back on. “They saw that I was the leader. Saw that I knew how to keep stormtroopers and officers in line, so they put me in charge of the... the refugees. And I was willing. Because they were safe and they needed time to recover. But...”

Hux sits back and looks away. “It was one little thing after another. More survivors came so they posted more guards and more... more control measures were needed. Rules about where people could go and what they could do and when they could do it. More... additives in the food. Always to keep us all. Safe. To keep us safe.”

Ben struggles to sit up. Additives in the food. It makes sense now, the inability to reach out and connect with the force, the dull feeling of not being able to sense the people around him properly, like having one of his senses wither away. He wonders how quickly his force powers will return. He looks around the interior of the Upsilon for someone to interrogate in the more traditional way and frowns.

“Where are the guards and the pilot?” he asks, then he covers his face with his hands and shakes his head. “Did you...? Tell me you didn’t.”  
“Well what else could I do?” Hux squawks. “If it’s them or me, I choose my survival every time.”  
“You spaced them,” Ben says.  
“All right!” Hux says angrily, looking away. “I panicked. You were out cold and one of them was starting to come round. I dragged them into the airlock and pressed eject.”  
Ben shakes his head. “I need to think,” he says.

Hux plops into the pilot seat. Ben closes his eyes and reaches out. Whatever substance prevented him from connecting to the force on the planet they have just fled is already fading.

He reaches out and feels Hux sitting in misery.  
He feels Rey, faint and far away, and determines to keep that distance at least until he knows why he’s still here.  
He feels a diffuse and glowing presence that reminds him of warmth and... and maybe a home he longed for but never really had.  
He feels Hux make up his mind.

“Kylo,” Hux says quietly, palms pressed over closed eyes.  
“I know,” Ben says just as quiet and somber.  
“We have to go back. Get my eyes... fixed somehow. Then go back and fight. Get our people out. Promise me you will help. You owe them too for their loyalty.”  
“I understand,” Ben says a little louder, suppressing the opinion that desertion doesn’t count as loyalty even if they were deserting with their general.  
“The Final Order is gone. But the First Order still has a handful of ships.”

“What are you talking about, Hux?” Ben exclaims. “It was a rout! The entire galaxy showed up and—”  
“Not my ship!” Hux blurts. “My Finalizer was in dock after Batuu. She’s ready. We could take her and the caretaker crew and—”  
“And give those fucks a star destroyer?” Ben shakes his head. “No. No way.”  
“They don’t have much of an army. They rely on softer means of control. We could take our own people back by force then blast that planet into oblivion,” Hux says, then he deflates at the sight of Ben’s face. Ben reaches his hand out and touches Hux’s hair, sweeps it off his unnaturally blue eyes, and Hux lets out a soft sob.

Ben gathers Hux into his arms and rocks him gently. It’s something he barely knew he missed doing until now, and he can’t figure out why they ever stopped. He knows of course: Snoke. Vader. Palpatine. Every voice inside his head telling him he could not have this.

“They’re all gone,” he says.  
“They’re alive!” Hux says. “You saw them. Not gone. Enslaved and—”  
“No,” Ben says, holding Hux tighter. ”Not them. All my demons. The voices. Palpatine and Snoke and... grandfather. All gone.”  
“Oh goody for you,” Hux snaps, but the heat quickly evaporates from his voice. “Fucking wonderful for you,” he adds. “Brilliant.”

Ben wants to laugh. He forces his voice to remain calm, steady. “When I told you we couldn’t be. What we were. To each other. It was Snoke talking. Palpatine. When I thought grandfather was telling me what to do, it was Palpatine. Everything came from him.” He takes a deep breath. Hux twists to look at him. “I thought... I thought he would make me harm you if we were together. I thought he would make you hate me and fear me.”  
“Well then,” Hux scoffs. “He was half right. I did hate you.”

Hope flares hot in Ben’s chest. “And now?” he murmurs.  
“I can’t hate a dead man,” Hux says. “I can’t even hate my father now he’s dead. And I can’t hate Kylo Ren.” Hux sighs. “Kylo Ren is dead, isn’t he?”  
Ben chews his lower lip and nods.  
“And you’re Ben Solo.”  
“Yes.”  
“What about that scavenger girl you were so obsessed with?”  
Ben shakes his head. “Whatever part of the galaxy she is in, I will be as far from it as I can get.”

Hux smiles. He turns his face to plant a soft kiss on Ben’s lips. Ben runs his fingers through Hux’s hair and kisses him back. The navicomputer beeps that they are arriving.

Ben frowns and checks the chrono. “We’re early. Like, a day early.”  
“Oh,” Hux says offhandedly. “No, I altered our destination.”  
Ben stares out the forward viewport as a planet appears, girdled by a docking ring. The shuttle skirts around it until a familiar ship is in sight. “This is clearly not Arkanis,” Ben says drily. “I thought I was taking you home.”  
“This is my home,” Hux says, unable to take his eyes off his ship.

 _“Imperial Upsilon Shuttle please identify,”_ a voice cuts in.  
Hux moves to the comms panel. “General Hux and...” He looks at Ben, who shakes his head slowly. “This is General Hux returning to the Finalizer from secondment to The Steadfast.”  
Hux transmits the personal codes he must have memorised and they are guided to a hangar. The officer who welcomes them aboard looks relieved to see them. “Sir, welcome back,” he says, then Ben strides down the ramp. The officer takes a step back and corrects himself. “Sirs. I heard you were dead.”  
“As you can see that rumour is unfounded, Lieutenant.” Hux smiles.  
“General,” the officer says. “Supreme Leader, I—”  
The officer stops at a gesture from Ben. “Gather all senior officers as soon as possible,” Ben orders. “Are there other ships that survived the battle of Exegol?”  
The Lieutenant nods. “At once sir. As to the other ships, I can’t say, sir. The communications station has been uncommonly quiet.”  
“Well find out, then!” Ben says with a scowl, and the Lieutenant scuttles away.

Ben accompanies Hux as he gets ready for their impromptu command meeting. Hux puts on a clean, crisp uniform, relaxing into its smooth lines and plain fabrics. He sweeps his hair back and waxes it into place. It hangs well below Hux’s collar and is almost long enough to tie up, Ben thinks. He likes the way it makes Hux look softer, less severe. But he has the good sense not to tell him this.

The meeting is short and has few seats filled. Hux and Ben take turns at describing the events at Exegol in language that leaves the Imperials shocked and the younger officers stunned, then Ben orders them to go home if they still have homes to go to. Ben announces ship-wide that anyone who wishes to leave may do so within the next hour without fear of retribution for desertion.

“Do you think we will be left with enough crew to operate a star destroyer?” Hux asks as he watches the personnel count drop from the comms panel on the bridge.  
“I hope not,” Ben replies. Hux glares at him. “This is my whole life, Ben.”  
“I know,” Ben replies. “And you’ve been lied to and manipulated as much as I have. As much as the stormtroopers have. Surely you can see that?”  
Hux tightens his mouth as a chief petty officer closes down her workstation and climbs out of the data pit. “So, Supreme Leader, what do we do in one hour when we have a ship and no crew to fly her?”

Ben sighs. “We leave.”  
“What are you talking about? I need my ship!” Hux scowls and Ben feels him solidify back into his old role. “And just who do you think you are talking to?”  
Ben can’t help his laughter. “Do you remember the last time you asked me that?”  
“Yes,” Hux replies angrily. “Do you plan on choking me this time too? Or maybe you’ll cut me in half.”  
“No,” Ben says. “You can have what you wanted back then. You can be Supreme Leader. I quit. But if you’re afraid to leave, what orders will you give before you’re captured and—”  
“Roll call of remaining loyal personnel. Assign duty teams to essential systems. Regroup. There must be a plan somewhere. There must be. Leader Snoke—”  
“There isn’t,” Ben says flatly. “Exegol was the plan all along and Palpatine saw only complete victory for the Final Order. There is no contingency plan, no protocol for surrender and you know what happened to the fleet.”

Hux stands silent on the bridge now occupied by just himself and Ben. “Hux,” Ben says more gently. “Face it, Armitage. The First Order is finished.”  
Hux’s face is set like stone. “I will never surrender, Ben.”  
“And neither will I,” Ben replies. “So we leave before someone has the bright idea of making themselves a hero by coming here, impounding the Finalizer, and detaining all on board to face trial, or simply executing everyone. Take your pick, Armitage. Come with me or go down with your ship.”

Ben watches Hux for a few seconds. Hux blinks and his face crumples, then he recovers. “Where will you go?” he asks.  
Ben shrugs. “Does it matter?”  
Hux doesn’t reply. Ben pulls him into a brief, awkward hug and leaves the bridge.

Ben encounters few officers on his way to the hangar. His upsilon is still there, thankfully, and is being guarded by two stormtroopers and the lieutenant who welcomed them back. “Still here?” Ben says, raising his eyebrows. “Are you loyal to Supreme Leader Hux?”  
The man shuffles a little. “I’m supervising the hangar. Making sure that those who want to leave do so in an orderly manner. I‘ve assigned pilots and troop carriers to take people to various locations in the mid-rim and outer-rim regions.”  
Ben nods. “Hux will need—”  
“And I will be on the last transport out,” the officer adds.

Ben says nothing because there’s nothing more to be said. He feels the man’s wavering resolve and, not wanting to push one way or the other, he walks up the ramp into the upsilon. Someone, the lieutenant he suspects, has arranged for it to be restocked and refuelled.  
He uses the comm panel. “Upsilon Shuttle requesting clearance to leave. Thank you, Lieutenant.”  
“It’s just Mitaka now,” the man says. “I’m going home too, remember. Stand by.”

Ben waits in the pilot seat, watching the gaping letterbox of the hangar exit as the force-fields shimmer and cycle, and small craft leave in small groups while larger transports sail through alone. He’s beginning to wonder why he has not been released yet, and why he has not simply jumped the queue, when the doors hiss and he hears boots on the ramp.

“Mitaka said you were about to leave without me,” Hux says. “I can’t allow it.”  
It’s Ben’s turn to glare and ask, “just who do you think you’re talking to?”  
Hux carries on as Ben hadn’t spoken. “We’ll go to Kamino first under assumed identities. They’ll see through it of course since they will require a sample of my DNA to clone a new pair of eyes, but as long as they are paid they will not care.”

Ben notices the duffel bag over Hux’s shoulder. Hux drops it. “After that,” Hux says, “we will regroup with any officers and enlisted personnel who decide that civilian life is not for them. Mitaka has agreed to coordinate that and return when there is some purpose to return _to._ He really is a credit to the Order, you know.”  
“You plan to rebuild your army?” Ben looks aghast. “Have you learned nothing from all this?”  
Hux frowns. “What? No! I mean,” He sighs. “You’re not reading my thoughts, are you?”  
“No.”  
“Well get us out of here then do it and say nothing. You never know who might be watching or listening.”  
Ben frowns deeper. “Hux—”  
_”Upsilon shuttle, you are cleared to depart. Safe travels and good luck, sirs.”_

“Go on then,” Hux says after Ben has piloted them out of the hangar and instructed the navicomputer to set a course for Kamino. He sits down and waits for Ben to join him as the blue glow of hyperspace envelops the shuttle.  
“Are you sure?” Ben asks.

Hux nods. Ben guides him to lie on the passenger bench and kneels beside him. He rests one hand on the side of Hux’s head and the other on his chest, and concentrates. Hux squirms a little and Ben backs off. He senses no duplicity aimed at him.

He sees nebulous memories of Hux’s too-short childhood.  
He feels the fear of a young boy trying to live up to impossible ideals.  
He feels Hux’s young heart harden to the core for fear of breaking.  
He sees what Hux has seen, warped by his sense of inadequacy and absolute fear of failure.  
He sees himself as Hux saw him, once. Tall, imposing, someone to fear, someone to impress. Someone to—

 _Not that._  
_Don’t show me that._  
But Hux does.

Ben tries to pull away and Hux draws him back in. He sees himself telling Hux they were nothing to each other and he feels a sharp pain in his chest, a stinging burn in his eyes, an ache in his throat.

Did I really look so cruel? he wonders.  
To me you did, comes the unspoken reply.

Ben waits and Hux settles. More recent memories are clearer. Itchy in a new overall that catches around his armpits and at his groin because it was made for someone shorter. _We have matched you with a role,_ Dar is saying. _It is a position of importance. You will be our new Minister. Our leader. There is one condition. You will need certain surgical procedures. Nothing that will alter your life in any way._

He feels Hux’s horror when he realises that Dar can now see everything he sees and hear everything he hears. The dark glasses are only good enough to hide his too-blue eyes from the gaze of others.

“You’re afraid Dar can still see through you,” Ben thinks and shares the thought. He senses Hux’s agreement and he sighs. “So Kamino first,” Ben projects into Hux’s head. “No mention of Dar until you are sure they’re unable to spy on us.”  
Agreement.

Ben retreats from Hux’s mind. They are both exhausted by the effort. Ben pushes Hux to move over and lies on the bench beside him. “Thank you for sharing all that with me,” Ben wants to say, but he can’t make words right now. And, “thank you for trusting me,” but he can’t speak. Instead he leans in and kisses Hux gently on the forehead. Hux grumbles and shifts, arm coming across Ben’s chest and head resting on Ben’s shoulder.

It feels familiar. Ben strokes Hux’s hair, soft where the wax hasn’t set, and kisses him again. Hux brings his hand up into Ben’s hair and kisses him back. It’s slow and sensual and everything Ben wants right now but didn’t know it yet. It’s sending messages from the tingle of Hux’s fingers against his scalp and the soft warmth of his mouth right to his cock. He shifts to pull Hux on top of him and rubs both hands up and down Hux’s back. Hux relaxes and goes still, head falling to the side.

Ben laughs at the first soft snore.

When they both wake up the navicomputer is chirping gleefully and they are in orbit around a planet that glitters brightly between rare breaks in the thick grey cloud. Hux slides off Ben and staggers to the comm unit. Soon they are coasting through atmo to their assigned landing pad. The Kaminoans who meet them listen to Hux’s request and conduct them to a comfortable room where they demand a price that Hux pays immediately with a credit chip that has had the 12-point star scratched from its surface.

Someone comes to take a tissue sample from Hux and a scan of his skull and the remaining soft tissues around his orbits, then tells them to make themselves comfortable for the next thirty hours or so while the new organs are grown with new muscles and tendons and nerves. Hux inspects the room. He peels off his clothes and steps into the shower, giving Ben a look that commands him to follow.

He does. He can’t _not_.

He wonders, while he is on his knees, mouthing at Hux’s cock, what Dar can see through Hux’s eyes from so far away.

Nothing. Hux has his eyes closed tightly. “Open your eyes,” Ben says. “Look at me.”

Hux turns his cybernetic implants on Ben and swipes wet strands back from Ben’s forehead. Ben keeps his eyes fixed on Hux’s for as long as he can while he sucks Hux off, only relaxing his neck when Hux closes his eyes and stuffs his fist in his mouth to stifle his moans. Ben finds it as endearing as he always did that Hux couldn’t allow himself the freedom of crying out in pleasure.

Afterwards, Hux clings to Ben until being under the shower is unbearable. They dry themselves then Ben leads Hux back to the main room. There are clean, loose robes and food waiting for them, so they dress and eat.

Ben meditates. The quiet, clinical room with the constant background hiss of rain battering transparisteel puts him at ease. Hux is relaxed and sleepy, perhaps even hopeful. Around him there are people waiting for the Kaminoans’ particular brand of medical treatments, and Kaminoans calmly going about their professional duties. Everywhere in the ocean, bright slivers of life flash and twist, eat and are eaten.

Somewhere deep lurks darkness, torpid with cold and subdued until it is hungry again. He pushes it from his mind in case it senses him too.

She is there too. Of course she is. Far away but glowing ever more brightly in the force.

Ben opens his eyes and sighs. “What?” he says in answer to Hux’s interrogative gaze.  
“You looked calm,” Hux replies. “I’ve never seen you like that. Even after we.” He sighs. “You always looked like you were searching for the next thing to worry about or to get angry at. It got to me.”  
Ben swallows. “That’s not me. Not any more.”  
“Well then,” Hux says, turning away. “I suppose if you can change, then so can I.”

There is (of course) only one bed. In the morning, Ben wakes up to find Hux watching him. He smiles and Hux smiles back. They make love as if it might be the last chance they get then lie together in silence because all they want to talk about is what they might do next.

The procedure is scheduled for early the next morning. A guide takes them on a limited tour of the facility and politely ignores Ben’s questions about the possibility of creating an army of clones from Hux. Hux stores the barbs for later and retaliates in private after dinner which results in more frenzied lovemaking and deep, sated sleep.

“We could stay here,” Ben says when he feels Hux wake, dozy and calm.  
“You don’t have the credits for that,” Hux replies. “We have to leave and—”  
Ben sighs into Hux’s silence. “I know.”

Someone collects Hux for the procedure. Banned from the treatment room, Ben waits. He sits then paces then sits and concentrates on Hux’s faint presence in the force. Hux is anxious but not in pain, and eventually the anxiety slips away too.

Hours later, Hux is brought out, still sedated, with bacta pads over both eyes.  
“You are his carer?” the Kaminoan asks. Ben nods. “Do not remove the dressings. They will fall off when healing is adequate.” They hold out a sealed foil pouch. Ben frowns at it. “The patient asked to keep one of the crude implants. We have taken the other for study. Please do not be alarmed if the cloned eye colour does not exactly match your expectation. I assure you we used only the patient’s own genetic material. Human eye colour is complicated. There are many factors that influence the final outcome.”

Ben nods and takes the foil pack from the Kaminoan. “When can we leave?” he asks.  
The Kaminoan looks at Hux then at Ben. “The procedure went as smoothly as could be hoped for under the circumstances. We will check on the patient in six hours.”  
“Under the circumstances,” Ben echoes. “What do you mean?”  
“There was much damage to underlying tissues. There is a possibility that one or both transplants might fail.”

Ben summons all he can of his persuasive powers. “If that happens, you will repeat the procedure at no cost.”  
The Kaminoan smiles. “I assure you that our reputation is worth more to us than a few million credits.”  
Embarrassed, Ben looks way. He walks beside the grav-gurney as the Kaminoan escorts them back to their room. By the time they arrive, Hux is coming round enough to babble nonsense and cling to Ben as he lifts him from the gurney and puts him in bed.

Six hours later the Kaminoan doctor performs a scan of Hux’s orbits, gives Ben a pack of bacta-infused eye bandages and some painkiller sticks, and informs him that they may leave.

Hux is not a good patient.  
The first time he tries to peel off the dressings, Ben reasons with him until he agrees that he should not interfere with his own healing process.  
The second time, Ben yells at him.  
The third time, he puts Hux in wrist binders.  
When he catches Hux almost dislocating a joint to try to scratch at his eyes, Ben sighs, apologises in advance, and puts him to sleep with a brush of the force across his mind.

He puts them in orbit around an uninhabited planet and interrogates the navicomputer.

He considers landing, telling Hux this is home now, but the memory of an old Alderaanian man, who thought in his isolation that the galaxy was still at war with the Empire, makes him shudder.

He thinks of the planet where he found Hux, and of Dar luring refugees into captivity.

When his anger subsides, he thinks of the lieutenant organising the safe exodus from The Finalizer before taking his own place on the last transport out, and he wonders if the man would slip back into his old life like putting on an old coat he’d forgotten he owned.

Ben suspects not.

When Hux wakes up, complaining about itchy eyes and sore arms, Ben sees that the edges of the bacta patches are loosening of their own accord and he tells Hux, “Not yet.”  
“Fine,” Hux says. ”If you don’t remove the binders you’ll have to help me in the ‘fresher.”  
Ben removes the binders but promises to watch in case Hux rips off the dressings. Hux sneers, but doesn’t try to pick at his eyes.

Over the next couple of hours, the dressings become looser and looser until one flops down on Hux’s cheek and Ben carefully peels them both away. It’s already dim inside the cabin since Ben set the environmental controls to minimum to conserve power.  
“Wait,” he says as he sees Hux’s eyelids flutter. He blacks out the windows in case the planet’s star shines harsh light into the cabin.

Hux blinks. “Feels odd,” he says.  
“Can you see?” Ben says.  
There’s a few seconds of silence. “No,” Armitage replies. “Can you?”  
Ben laughs. “Not really. Lights ten percent.”

A soft glow illuminates the inside of the cabin. He can just see Hux blinking in soft grey tones. Hux shakes his head.  
“Lights twenty percent.”  
“Thirty percent,” Hux says, and looks around him. “I can’t see much, but I can see _something_. Fifty percent.”  
He covers one eye and then the other.

“Well?” Ben asks impatiently.  
“The doctor said that human eyes are overcomplicated and that it might take a few days for my brain to adapt to the new input. I can see blobs and blurs.”  
“So what do you want to do now, Armitage?”

Ben suspects he already knows. He just wants to hear Hux confirm it.  
“I want to get as many officers together as I can and I want to recover our personnel from captivity. They were loyal to me and I won’t leave them behind.”  
Ben nods and sighs. “All right,” he says. “I think you’re a fool to go back there but I’ll help you.”

Hux orders the lights up to full brightness and inspects his hands in front of his face for a few seconds. “Thank you,” he says, and smiles at where he thinks Ben is. Ben smiles back and looks at Hux’s new eyes. The Kaminoan was right—the colour is a little too green—but the fine lines of scars radiating from Hux’s orbits are already fading from red to pink.

“What are you waiting for?” Hux snaps. “Comm Mitaka on my personal channel and give him the location of that blasted planet we were trapped on. We can regroup in its Lagrangian point L5. We will have small craft only so they will not detect us until we’re ready.”  
“Ready for what?” Ben says.  
“To attack. To remove Dar and take over.”

“I won’t use the force for harming people,” Ben says, a warning note in his voice. “Not even Dar. I might not be able to. There was something dampening the force. Maybe it was the drugged food, maybe it was something of the planet’s structure. I won’t be able to help you with the force.”  
“If you can’t reach the force on that planet then it can’t trouble you any more,” Hux says. “Perhaps it will prevent other force users...” Hux looks meaningfully at Ben, “from finding you.”

Ben looks at the concern in Hux’s face. “All right,” he says quietly. “And what about after that? What will you do once the planet is yours?”  
“Ours,” Hux says. “It will be ours.” He sighs. “Honestly, I fantasised about using the Finalizer to turn its atmosphere into a raging, scouring dust storm and blasting its crust to glass. But what a waste of resources that would be. Then I thought of recruiting. Get my soldiers back onto the Finalizer. Train anyone else who wanted to leave. Promise them a clean, safe bed and adequate food and gainful employment if they would join up. But they have that already. Only my price would be different. Loyalty is a form of captivity, I suppose.”

Ben’s staring at Hux now. “So what will you do once you have your planet?”  
“I have not got the faintest idea,” Hux confesses. “But I would like you to be part of it.”


End file.
